Thursday, 30 August 2007

From the President

#3 Paper Machine

The rumor that A3 has been sold appears to be true. Ron Buchhorn did confirm that there were discussions with prospective buyers and the specific details were still to be worked out. He also confirmed that if and when the machine is to be dismantled and crated, that JVDI would be contracted and that the company would employ some of our laid-off members working under our collective agreement. We will keep you up to date as we get more information.

Shop Stewards Meetings

Shop Stewards meetings resume Tuesday Sept. 4th at 7PM at the hall. Please try to make every effort to attend and get the latest information on the business of the local. Also we may have to adjust the current Shop Steward representation to reflect the current size of our local. I'm sure that John, Bob and Dan will be discussing this at the Shop Steward Meeting.

Wage Delegates / Ron Buchhorn Discussions

We are tentatively scheduled to resume talks on Friday Sept. 7th. Kim Pedersen will also be in attendance for the duration of these talks along with Dale Shimell, Krista Tremblay, Ron Buchhorn and facilitator Bert Painter. We hope this meeting will lead into continuous talks to try and come to a successful outcome for a long term future as a 2 machine operation.

Inappropriate Literature

To the person or persons responsible for the latest edition of the "Crapalyst Journal" please be warned that this type of material is totally unacceptable by any bodies standards. I'm sure the company has a copy by now and if you are discovered, you're on your own. We may be able to argue violations of our collective agreement but not civil law and violations of human rights legislation.

These times are tough on all of us but if you have to shed your frustration somewhere then please do it in a respectful fashion and at the proper venue such as the next General Meeting on the 3rd Monday in September.

4 comments:

after reading the news article in the victoria times colinist i would like to remind our president that we are not a trades only local and that junior operators are losing thier jobs and having to leave as well .

You are absolutely right, we are not just a trades local. I did not give an interview to anyone from the Times Colonist and have not seen it myself. Don't forget that I'm an operstor myself (or used to be until today)and I have always considered Local 592 as a composite local with operators and trades. If I did refer to local 592 as a trades local then it was to differentiate us from 686 as the papermaker local.

I have just posted an update on the last meeting on Friday. As for Ron Buchhorn and Kim Pedersen, these are the people with have to deal with. Having both of these people present is an advantage for us as we know right from the get go what their position is and we don't have to deal with a middleman.